Geschichte des griechischen Weltmodells vor AristoteIes 231 Vom frühhistorischen Weltbild aus fragt man nicht nach der wahren Größe der Gestirne, nach dem Fallen der Erde, nach einer Vielzahl von Welten. Alle diese Fragen, sowie die Theorie des Wirbels, werden erst mit der Himmelskugel sinnvoll. Anaxime­ nes und Xenophanes haben noch das alte Weltbild; erst Anaxago­ ras durchdenkt konsequent die Hypothese der Himmelskugel (§§ 4-9). Mit der Himmelskugel drängt sich allmählich der Ge­ danke auf, daß es kein absolutes Oben und Unten gibt, logische Entwicklung über Plato zum Philolaos-System und zu Aristoteles (§ 10). Während sich der schrittweise erfolgende Fortschritt vom alten Weltbild über Anaxagoras zum aristotelischen Modell im­ mer deutlicher und durch Originalstellen belegt abzeichnet, wer­ den die nur von der Doxographie überlieferten frühen Vorweg­ nahmen von Himmels- und Erdkugel immer fragwürdiger. Nach den Ergebnissen dieses Aufsatzes bleibt allein Anaximander davon übrig. Diese Lage zwingt zu einer radikalen Kritik an der Anaxi­ mander-Doxographie: Die Himmelskugel ist in Anaximander hineingelesen worden (§§ 11-2). Zwei Exkurse: Anaxagoras ist zeitlich vor Parmenides anzu­ SCL"en; Rechtfertigung der Deutung und Datierung des Philolaos­ Systt. 'S iq dieser Arbeit (§§ 13-4). Kiel Detlev Fehling THE ORIGIN OF THE PANATHENAEA I. The problem 11. Festivals of Athena resembling the Panathenaea IH. Erichthonius, Erechtheus, and the Cecropids IV. Erichthonius and the fetching of new fire V. Hephaestus and the sixth-century reform VI. The ritual innovations: torch-race, peplos, ship-wagon I. The problem The evidence for the Panathenaea - for the procession, the sacrifices, the contests, the setting of the ritual, the aspect of the worshippers and the officiants - is probably fuller than for any 232 Noel Robertson 1 other ancient festival save the Eleusinian MYsteries ). Doubt and controversy are not wanting; yet such outstanding questions as the difference between the annual and the fourth-yearly celebra­ tions, the use of the peplos, the route and destination of the ship­ wagon, the development of the administrative boards and of the program of events, are themselves a measure of the variety and 2 extent of our knowledge ). But although so many details are so well illuminated, the centre is dark. There is no understanding of the origin and significance of the festival, of its social or seasonal purpose, and there has been almost no inquiry, only wild conjec­ ture or blank indifference. It is commonly said that the festival as we know it is adven­ titious or secondary, having been created or made over for politi­ cal ends, and so preserves little or nothing of old customs and belief3). Some allow that an earlier festival on the same date was 1) It may be of interest to compare/roportions in two general works on Athenian festivals, Deubner's of 1932 an Parke's of 1977 (n. 2 below). The Panathenaea receive from Parke about the longest treatment of any festival - 17 pages, as against 17 for the Mysteries, 13 for the Anthesteria, 10 for the city Dionysia, and 5 or 6 each for the Thesmophoria, Scira, and Dipolieia; the Panathenaea also receive the lion's share of the illustrations (pis. 4-19). Deubner by contrast gave 31 pages to the Anthesteria, 22 to the Mysteries, 16 to the Dipolieia, 10 each to the Thesmophoria and the Scira, but only 4 pages to the city Dionysia and 13 to the Panathenaea. Parke's preference is for spectacle and recreation, Deubner's for the rural and primitive side of Dionysus and Demeter; both scant the religious significance of the Panathenaea. It is also true that the archaeological and epigraphic discoveries of recent years have bolstered the Panathenaea as weil as other festivals, but this increment is not reflected in Parke, who gives us no more than an enarratio of the Parthenon frieze, of the fourth-century schedule of prizes, and of the Lycurgan law about the Lesser Panathenaea, and is unaware that the first half of this law has been available since 1959 (SEG 18.13, 21.269, 25.65). 2) The main ex professo treatments are F.Dümmler, RE 2.2 (1896) 1962-1966 s. Athena; A.Mommsen, Feste der Stadt Athen (Leipsic 1898) 41-159; E.Pfuhl, De Atheniensium pompis sacris (Berlin 1900) 3-31; E.Fehrle, Die kul­ tische Keuschheit im Altertum (Giessen 1910) 179-183; P. Stengel, Die griechi­ schen Kultusaltertümec3 (Munich 1920) 221-226; L. Deubner, Attische Feste (Ber­ lin 1932) 22-35; L.Ziehen, RE 18.2.2 (1949) 457--489 s. Panathenaia 1; H. A. Thompson, AA 1961.224-231 (the games); J. A. Davison, From Ar­ chilochus to Pindar (London 1968) 28-69; A. Breiich, Paides e parthenoi (Rome 1969) 314-348; W.Burkert, Homo Necans (Berlin 1972) 173-177, cf. Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassischen Epoche (Stuttgart 1977) 352-354; J. D. Mikalson, AJP 97 (1976) 141-153 (the origins); H. W. Parke, Festivals of the Athenians (London 1977) 33-50. W. Fauth, KIPauly 4 (1972) 449--450 s. Panathenaia, supplies some further references. 3) Myiampling of opinion is drawn mainly from the works cited in n. 2 above, as folIows: Deubner 22-23, cf. 15-17, 35; Davison 29-34; Dümmler 1962-1963, 1965-1966; M. P. Nilsson, Griechische Feste (Leipsic 1906) 87; Mommsen 155-159; Ziehen 488--489; Mikalson 149-153; Burkert passim. The Origin of the Panathenaea 233 subsumed in the Panathenaea. Deubner postulated an aneient Hauptfest other than the Arrhephoria, Plynteria, or Chalceia, pre­ sumably addressed to "the old palaee goddess of the king of Athens", the role whieh Deubner fleetingly diseerned behind all the other funetions and festivals of Athena. Davison like many others saw the Panathenaea refleeted in a Homerie passage, 11. 2.550-551, whieh ean only refer to the Seira (more of this below); without this warrant "the earliest form of the festival" vanishes entirely, and is unknowable in any ease, if, as Davison supposed, the sixth-eentury organizers introdueed "arehaizing" rites as well as fashionable eontests. Others have earried the proeess of redue­ tion still further. Dümmler held that Solon fashioned the Panathenaea with his own hands out of elements taken from the Arrhephoria and the Plynteria. Nilsson, speaking not of Athens' Panathenaea but of similar festivals elsewhere, branded them all as late and derivative, arising from adesire to honour the goddess of the eitadel with popular rites whieh were strietly alien 10 her nature. Such eonjeetures as have been made about the original or the abiding signifieanee of the Panathenaea are very uneonvineing. Mommsen thought of a harvest festival honouring Athena as the true patron of agrieulture at Athens, later displaeed by Demeter; the harvest festival was subsequently re-interpreted and embroi­ dered as a "vietory festival" - why, he did not say. Ziehen quali­ fied Mommsen's view: the Ur-Athene, as disclosed by the studies of Wilamowitz and Nilsson, was no agrarian deity, but agrarian funetions might still be attaehed to the palaee goddess who pro­ teets both the king and his land. J. D. Mikalson has reeently suggested that the festival was onee addressed not to Athena but to Ereehtheus as a "pre-Greek" deity, a "divine ehild" represent­ ing the vegetation eycle; Ereehtheus and the Panathenaea are said to resemble Hyaeinthus and the Hyaeinthia_of Sparta. Different again is Burkert's view of the Panathenaea as a new-year's festival marking the symbolie restoration of the eivie order whieh was symbolieally dissolved by the festivals of Seirophorion, the Ar­ rhephoria, Scira, and Dipolieia; he finds that when these festivals are taken together, the full range of deities, of aetiologieal heroes and events, and even of saerifieial vietims, makes a pattern whieh refleets all the eonditions und values of eivilized life. Some eritieism of these views is needed, and will help us to understand the problem. They all invite one large objeetion in prineiple. It is generally reeognized, or should be, that ritual eom- 234 Noel Robertson es first, and gives rise to myths and to the mythical features and attributes of the gods. Public festivals are the most conspicuous kind of ritual and recur widely in much the same form; the great gods are likely to be projections of the great festivals; witness Demeter and Kore above all. The Panathenaea are Athena's pre­ mier festival in Athena's favourite city, and the ritual- the proces­ sion under arms, the equestrian contests, the scenes of combat embroidered on the peplos - exactly matches the goddess' charac­ ter. The same or similar ritual elements are found in other festivals of Athena, to be examined below. Then why suppose that the Panathenaea or these other festivals are foisted on the goddess at a late date as a political expedient? Or why suppose that the original focus of the Panathenaea was something remote {rom both the ritual business and the goddess' character, namely agriculture? Such is the objection in principle - which also dictates a better method of interpretation, as we shall see in amoment. The agrarian hypothesis does not even fit the season of the Panathenaea, amid-summer lull in the farmer's routine. In Attica the harvest came in Thargelion, roughly speaking, and was prob­ ably solemnized by the festival Calamaea of Attic inscriptions; the threshing came in Scirophorion, and was solemnized by the festi­ val Scira and the conveyance of threshed and winnowed corn from Scirum to the Acropolis, from the sacred ploughland into the hands of Athena's millers; at the end of all these labours came the labourers' reward, the hilarity of the Cronia in early Hecatom­ baeon. From this moment until the ploughing and sowing of Pyanopsion the only agricultural rites were modest offerings on behalf of the seed corn (cf.